Haleh’s attorney, Shirin Ebadi, is still unable to see or speak to Haleh after claims made by a justice minister spokesman, Ali Reza Jamshidi, that Ebadi has full access to her client.

Nobel prize winner and lawyer Shirin Ebadi said on Wednesday that she was still being denied access to jailed US-Iranian scholar Haleh Esfandiari after Iran’s judiciary said access was no problem.

Ebadi, appointed Esfandiari’s lawyer by her family, said in a fax obtained by AFP that “on Wednesday I went to the investigating judge in the revolutionary court, and just like Monday I was not allowed in to see her.”

The peace laureate said she went to Evin prison, where Esfandiari is being held pending a possible trial, where the deputy public prosecutor “declined me permission to meet my client.”

“There is no problem for her to be the lawyer and carry out her legal job with freedom, as she has done before,” he added.

However, on Monday, Ebadi said she went to Tehran’s revolutionary court for a meeting with prosecutors but was told Esfandiari “did not need a lawyer”.

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